Is John Irving saying he’s glad he read Dickens before Hemingway an insult? Hem thinks so. He’s a boxer and Irving wrestles. The Mixed Martial Author’s Octagon is a natural meeting place for the two diciplines.

It doesn’t matter if Ernest Hemingway has been dead half a century; his work still knocks people out. Will he knock Irving out?

Both men carry the sorrows and scars of their service, both stained by the actions of others.

Both hearts have been re-plumbed in the shop, finished with zippers and staples, and ready to rumble.

Clinton left town after blundering his way into a budget surplus.

Cheney left without Scooter Libby‘s prison term pardon for leaking secret CIA identities.

How did that one go?

“Don’t worry Scoots, I gave up Valerie Plame to the right source. It won’t make it back to us, but if it does you just stand up and take it. We’ll let it play through the system and Joe will pardon you on his last day in office. They do it all the time. Not always popular. You’ll be one of those.”

“Joe? You mean George? President Bush?”

“Yeah whatever.”

Will fists fly fast and furious? Or will one of them drop the bomb, the heart punch.